Unicode and Windows XP

1
Unicode and Windows XP

• Cathy Wissink
• Program Manager
• Globalization Infrastructure, Design and
  Development
• Windows International
• Microsoft

2
Agenda

• Brief Overview of Approach and History
• International Functionality on Windows
• Whats Different in Windows XP?
• Whats Beyond Windows XP?
• Conclusions and Resources

3
Approach and History
4
Just what is Windows anyhow?
Windows XP
Windows 2000
Windows ME
Windows NT 4
Windows 98
Windows 95
Win NT 3.5, 3.1
Win NT
Win 9x
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Our Approach

• Include full Unicode support from onset
• Leverage Uniscribe, OpenType, NLS
• Migrate towards a single worldwide source
  (reached in Windows 2000)
• Develop and refine Multilingual User Interface
  functionality
• Continue to add new international functionality
  (Windows Text Services Framework, etc.)

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Our History (or Well, how did we get here?)

• Genesis of NT (1991) Go with Unicode!
• NT 4.0 (1996) many Unicode components, but still
  strong code page dependency
• NT 5.0, renamed Windows 2000 (2000) single
  worldwide source
• Windows XP (2001) merge of the NT international
  functionality with the consumer experience of
  Windows 95/98/ME

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International Functionality

• NLS (National Language Support), including the
  locale model
• Uniscribe (including OpenType)
• Windows Text Services Framework
• MUI (Multilingual User Interface Pack for Windows)

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National Language Support

• NLS provides the information that supports
  culturally appropriate behavior
• Sorting and casing
• Formatting (dates, times, currency, numbers)
• Conversions (normalization, character encodings)
• Other (calendars, native digits)

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National Language Support, cont.

• NLS data for a particular culture grouped into a
  locale (generally, a country language
  combination).
• There were different types of locales on
  Windows 2000, which have been renamed for Windows
  XP (as seen in Regional Options)

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Locales

• Windows 2000
• User locale
• (cultural conventions and data)
• Input locale
• (keyboards and IMEs)
• System locale
• (code page conversions)

• Windows XP
• Standards and Formats
• Input Language and Method
• Language for non-Unicode Programs

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Uniscribe

• The technology used to handle the layout,
  rendering and editing of complex scripts

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Examples of Complex Scripts
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Some of the text issues handled by Uniscribe

• Word breaking (Thai)
• Bi-directional text (Hebrew, Arabic)
• Multiple diacritics on a base character
  (Vietnamese)
• Contextual shaping (Indic, Arabic)
• Illegal character combination filtering (Thai)

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Windows Text Services Framework

• New to Windows XP!
• Extends input methods to include natural language
  recognition (speech, handwriting)

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MUI

• Short for Multilingual User Interface
• MUI changes language of the systems menus,
  dialogs and Help files into one of 33 different
  languages
• Available as add-on pack for Windows XP
  Professional (Multilingual User Interface Pack)

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MUI, continued

• MUI built by copying resources from localized
  versions
• Testers check for same issues as for localized
  versions
• Resource loader checks users UI language setting
  to load the appropriate resources

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MUI vs. other international functionality

• MUI
• changes the users UI language
• only available as an add-on pack to the English
  version of Windows XP
• All other international functionality
• impacts language content and formatting
• available on all versions of Windows XP

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Whats new for Windows XP (and Windows .NET
Server)?
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NLS

• 9 new locales invariant locale 136 locales
  total
• Punjabi, Gujarati, Telugu, Kannada, Kyrgyz,
  Mongolian (Cyrillic), Galician, Divehi and Syriac
• Old Hangul sorting
• GB18030 encoding
• New location (Geo) APIs
• Overhaul of Regional Options

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Regional Options
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Uniscribe

• New script support
• Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Telugu, Divehi, and
  Syriac
• Improvements to resolution, layout and formatting
  made possible by GDI
• Default system installation of Uniscribe
• Improved font fallback support

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MUI

• Closer parity to 100 localized builds
• UI strings removed from registry and kernel
• Improvements to Shell, Desktop and Console
  resource handling
• Help files enabled for UI language switching

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MUI, beyond XP RTM

• Separate MUI pack for .NET Server
• Windows XP SP1 (US) can be installed on MUI
  machines
• Windows 2000 MUI languages now supported with
  Terminal Server
• (See Russ Rolfes talk later today on MUI!)

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If you take away just one thing from this talk

• As a result of pervasive Unicode support built
  into Windows XP, international functionality
  (except MUI) is available on all versions
• This includes
• Localized versions
• MUI version
• Base (English) version

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Whats coming?
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Looking to the future

• MUI Language Interface Packs (LIPs)
• New research for languages and cultures
• Marry MUI and localization?
• Eventual goal English is just another
  language

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Resources

• Windows Global Development Website
• http//www.microsoft.com/globaldev/
• mailtogdhelp_at_microsoft.com (Global Dev Help)
• mailtodrintl_at_microsoft.com (Dr. International)
• Developing International Software, v.2 (available
  later this year)
• Microsoft Typography Website (OpenType,
  Uniscribe)
• http//www.microsoft.com/typography